


Love Like a Dying Flame

by Lolo (TheLittleLo)



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Booker's just a sad french man, F/F, F/M, I'm a mean mean fic author, Masturbation, Oh also I snuck in my brotp, Unrequited Love, You can't change my mind, and I really wish I could make him happy, because Joe and Booker are BFFs, but actually just T for Teen/impure thoughts that would make our favorite ex priest blush, but mostly this is just Booker feeling real sorry for himself and pining after andy, instead I'm just making things worse for him!, one teeny tiny mention of, some background nicky/joe for ya too, this is rated S for Somebody hold Booker my sad sad child!, unbetaed, what even are these tags??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25627285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittleLo/pseuds/Lolo
Summary: Booker wasn’t an idiot. Ok well, maybe when it came to some things, but not this. He had no delusions about Andy. He may not have been around to meet Quynh or see her and Andy together. But he’d heard enough, mostly from Joe, to know that there was an insurmountable wall between him and Andy.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 21
Kudos: 89





	Love Like a Dying Flame

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt from an anon on tumblr:  
> "I know you’re mostly JoexNicky, but would you consider writing AndyxBooker? My HC is that Booker pines hard for Andy. Lots of unrequited love potential. Sex is fine, but feelings are better."
> 
> My tumblr is scimitar-and-longsword, if ya feel like following me there/want to send me a prompt <3

Booker wasn’t an idiot. Ok well, maybe when it came to some things, but not this. He had no delusions about Andy. He may not have been around to meet Quynh or see her and Andy together. But he’d heard enough, mostly from Joe, to know that there was an insurmountable wall between him and Andy.

Booker would never expect Joe or Nicky to move on with anyone else should one of them die or be lost. So, why would Andy, whose relationship with Quynh had lasted twice as long as Joe and Nciky’s had so far, be any different? 

He  _ knew _ Andy could never love him. Not when Quynh was still dying and invading his dreams every night. But it didn’t matter what he  _ knew  _ he couldn’t have, he also _knew_ he couldn’t help but hope that someday she could see him as more than just another soldier. After all, they did have- had- all the time in the world.

When his wife and sons had all been laid to rest and the reality of facing eternity alone set in, Booker had all but lost hope. Even now, hope was a small candle at the other end of the infinite cave that was his mind. There seemed to be an eternity of darkness between himself and that flickering candle, and often he would lose sight of it completely. 

Then Booker would return from death with Andy’s face inches from his own. She’d say something like ‘ _ Come back to me’ _ and press her forehead to his as he rocked through the painful aftershocks of healing. In those moments, the flickering flame felt more like a bonfire.

Those moments fueled him. And kept him alive. Perhaps his body would have soldiered on regardless. But Andy was the one who kept the tatters of his soul tethered to earth.

He had vomited after he touched himself and thought of Andy instead of his wife for the first time. The guilt of betraying his wife had been overwhelming even 40 years after her death. But she was gone, and it hurt too much to think of her so long after she had left him. So his thoughts turned to Andy. It took time, but eventually he stopped like an adulterer. No, now he just felt like a creep. 

Joe knew something was up. Booker was sure of it. There had been more than one instance where Booker had caught himself staring at Andy only to shake himself out of it and earn a sad smile from his friend. Joe never said anything of course. That wasn’t the kind of friendship he and Joe had. But there was not a doubt in Booker’s mind that Joe knew.

Booker tried to keep his feelings in check, to rationalize them away. He tried to distract himself and sleep with random women as often as he needed to. And for a while, it worked.

But, in the last few decades it had gotten much much worse.

Toronto, 1951. 

The four of them were clearing out an illegal arms dealer and Andy had handed Booker a fully loaded Beretta mere seconds after he had fired his last shot. It was the first time anyone had anticipated his needs in battle before. Nicky and Joe, constantly had each other covered, and at times even Andy. But never Booker. Not before this time.

After that they quickly became a team. Their own sub-unit to mirror Joe and Nicky. And they made a pretty good team in a fight. It certainly wasn’t as effortless as Nicky and Joe fighting together, but it worked. Or at least it had worked.

The flame still disappeared from time to time, but after every fight or battle where he and Andy had traded blows on the same enemy, or one of them had killed someone about to make a killing strike on the other, the candle would come into view, still far away. But there.

Columbia, 1983. 

He and Andy were helping to escort a group of refugees over the border into Panama. Booker had been on watch, Andy nodding off beside him. Both of their backs against a large tree, the people they were protecting sleeping in the clearing in front of them. Andy’s head had slumped over onto Booker’s shoulder as she finally let sleep take her. 

He knew it meant nothing, not in the way he wanted it to. She was tired and his shoulder was as good a place as any. In any case it clearly had not been a choice, she had practically passed out from exhaustion. Still he couldn’t ignore how good it felt to know that Andy trusted him enough to let her guard down like this.

The flame in his mind burned a little brighter after that.

Busan, 2005.

Joe and Nicky had become trapped in a collapsed and still on fire apartment building. Nicky had run in with no plan as soon as he heard shouts coming from inside. Of course Joe had followed him in without hesitation.

Andy and Booker stayed outside, helping people who made it out, even catching a woman who had jumped from the third floor. Booker had broken multiple ribs when he broke her fall.

When the building had come crashing down with Joe and Nicky still inside, Booker had started to rush the building, intending to find his friends. Dig them out by hand if need be. But Andy had stopped him.

She grabbed his hand and stared directly in his eyes.

“Don’t.” she had said simply. Her voice was low and dry.

He had never seen her look so scared, not up to that point. It was the first time he had seen her cry. Not tear up, but actually cry. 

He sat with her as the firefighters and police pulled body after body from the rubble, including Joe and Nicky. She had held his hand the entire time.  He still didn't understand what about that fire, which was far from the first or the last they had faced, had broken her so completely that night. 

The smoldering flames of the wrecked building matched the ones in his mind. He could feel them on his face, and behind his eyes. He could feel them in the pit of his stomach.

And Now?

Booker wasn’t really sure what to think anymore. It couldn’t be healthy to pin all his love and hope on a person who didn’t return the feelings. And it wasn’t fair to Andy. Booker found it difficult to pull himself out of his depression long enough to really consider what was or wasn’t fair though.

He had spent 150 years second guessing every action Andy took. Always wondering if the reason she chose to sit next to him on every couch and helicopter was because Joe and Nicky were joined at the hip and she had no other choice. 

God. He felt like a child, jealous at who’s team he was chosen for in some schoolyard game. Not that he could remember what, if any, games he had played as a child.

Or perhaps the reason she chose him over Joe and Nicky wasn’t because he was the only one left, but because it was him. Sebastien le Livre. This selfish, fucked up, mess of a man, who loved his friends even as he cursed them for their happiness. Even as he made the choice to betray them to find his own peace.

He would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done to Andy. He would never know if his gunshot had been the one that flipped some invisible switch on her mortality. And now he would likely never see her again.

His grief had grown so terrible, his self loathing so all encompassing that he stopped being able to feel that flame in the back of his mind. And now he feared he would never feel it again. Doomed to wallow for eternity, mourning all the loves he had lost over the course of his never ending life.

Two months after his exile began he stopped dreaming of Quynh. He bitterly thought that if he had been able to wait just a few more months before making the worst mistake of his life, he would have been able to be there when Andy finally mourned Quynh. Help her pick up the pieces. 

He hated himself for that being his first reaction. He was a selfish piece of shit and he deserved to never see her again. She was better off without him.

No instead he had gotten word to Copley to try and discreetly let Nile know that her dreams of Quynh stopping wasn’t normal. Andy deserved to know.

When he stumbled into his apartment in Paris, absolutely gone on cheap cognac, He was determined to live the entire century drunk. He sobered up as soon as his door pushed open without needing it’s key though. 

He pulled his gun, stepped into the room, and saw the absolute last thing he had ever expected to see.

Standing before him was the woman whose face he knew better than his own, the only face he knew better than Andy’s.

“Booker.” Quynh cooly said. 

She poured herself a glass of water, and added, “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

He stood, frozen in disbelief, gun still pointed at Quynh. When a single small thought crept into his mind.

This was his chance, wasn’t it? If he couldn’t have Andy, which he had started to make peace with these last six months. Maybe returning something precious to her would end his exile early and allow him to at least be near her during the final years of her life.

Somewhere in the back of Booker’s mind, a small flame flickered to life.


End file.
